Coworking Advantages for Moms

Please enjoy this post from member Lindsay as she recounts how Cohere Coworking Community has benefited her work, her home and her family.

I want to preface this with the fact that I am no longer a stay-at-home mom, partially as a disclaimer, partially as a testament to the benefit of Cohere in my life. When I met Angel in March 2010, I was pretty much an at-home mother to my 3.5 year old daughter and my 6 year old son (who was in half-day Kindergarten, what a scheduling pain that is). I was running my web development business when I could, fitting it in around my obligations to my family and household. And when I worked from home, I have to admit, I was less than productive. With dirty dishes, dirty floors, dirty laundry, and kids all demanding attention, I found it very challenging to get any time to focus directly on my business. My husband, also self-employed, and I would trade back and forth who was ‘on duty’ with kids and household, but when Mama’s desk is right in the middle of the living room, kids will insert themselves between woman and computer.

Mom! My dinosaur is sick!

When Cohere opened, I jumped at the chance to have a day or two per week away from the house just to focus on work. Being away meant that my husband was the one to whom the kids would run for attention, he was the one to do some of the chores (let’s be honest, I still do the tidying and vacuuming) and I could come home feeling like I had killed two birds with one stone – some housework had been done and the kids had been cared for by a parent and I had really accomplished my work goals (including earning money). On my days home, I could leave work alone and really focus on the kids and my housework and gardening. I felt like I played more with my kids after I started working away from home b/c I had a clear delineation in my time, home vs. work.

Over the past six months my business has really grown and I have gone from a 2.5 days-per-week membership at Cohere to a full-time membership. My husband is home full-time with our daughter (our son is in first grade now) and takes care of the household as well. Because I am self-employed, I can take time off as I need and let my husband have a break, or go volunteer at our son’s school. Because my membership at Cohere is flexible (Lindsay is on the Neighbor plan with 24/7 access), I can come in whenever it works for my family – early morning, late evening, mid-day, weekends even. Mostly I work through normal business hours, but having the work-hours flexibility that I need for my family dovetails right in with the flexibility I chose by becoming a freelancer in the first place.

Angel asked me if I have words of advice for other at-home mothers, especially those who don’t necessarily wish to do what I did but instead would like to keep their work a smaller part of their lives. My advice is that it is easier to keep it a smaller part of your life if you can separate it from your home environment and other commitments. If you can find an evening or afternoon once or twice a week to get away, into a supportive and fun environment of other professionals, you will see your productivity increase dramatically. I’d be willing to bet that your mental and emotional bandwidth will also increase dramatically. At-home moms know what I mean.

-Lindsay

Try out a Free Day Pass this week. Also, we’re open on Wednesday nights so you can pass your kids off to your partner, come to Cohere and get some serious work done.